Chapter 22 - Huntly Mine (part 11)

(This chapter is written in Mirai's perspective)

- Anti-corrosion spray, check. Agility module, check. Weapon, check... - I scroll through the list of items through my built-in archive, making sure that the most important items are in the quick list.

After parting with Yuusha, I head to the building with the elevator that links to the underground facility. I am genuinely surprised that a visitor's identification card can allow access to such an area. After about a few minutes descending about fifty metres into the ground and wandering across the long hallway, the familiar sight once again appears in my field of vision, now with newly repaired electrical connections after the incident. That is fast.

In the twentieth century, and even until now, train stations are constructed with a door that links the station and the outside. If this station serves the same purpose as a train station for commute, there should be such a door nearby.

I turn on gamma vision to detect cracks on the wall that may resemble the door hinges and contacts from a door left unused for a long time. Setting the angle of vision to maximum, it does not take long for me to find an old door that seems like it has not been in used for like fifty years. Layers of dust have crusted the contacts of the door and just the dusty, untouched area around the door itself makes the door surreptitiously blend in with the already eerie view.

However, if people says that nothing beats time, I would laugh at that and slap a motherboard that is used in time machines at their ignorance. And in this case, layers of dust cannot have the same blocking power as a metal, and gamma rays easily penetrate the dust layers, sending me a signal that something is behind.

Washing the door with a normal detergent and some water stored in the Codex and fixing some rusty lock mechanism, I open the door that links the safe station area to the toxic and unbearably scorching area outside. I quickly close the door and give a thin sealing layer so that toxic air would not enter the station.

- Ha, three hundred and thirty kelvin, six hundred parts per million sulfur dioxide, low oxygen concentration... No wonder the area jsut get almost abandoned. - I look at the counter after my central processing unit measures atmospheric quality.

I coat myself with a layer of anti-corrosion spray and increase my shell reflectivity to sustain for a longer time in the area, then take out a photon sniper rifle. After fully gearing up, my left corner of my vision shows the three-dimensional map of the underground facility, pins the coordinates of the anomalous factory and calculates the shortest track. Processing such a massive amount of information in less than half a minute, the shortest route in the real place is highlighted through my vision.

Maybe today is just not my day, but I spot some Intruders patrolling, probably because we just kill one of their higher-ups and disappear without a trace. At where I stand, the Intruders are sparsely distributed, but I suspect that the closer we approach the anomalous factory, the more densely distributed the patrolling Intruders. Despite the higher difficulty, it is an indicator that we are actually on the right track.

Using the oddly designed factories that provide various hiding spots and strategic locations, my agility module makes me travel swiftly and stealthily between the spots and approach some lone Intruders, or ones in small groups at a suitable range. I switch on the scope, zoom in, calculate bullet drop, position and horizontal disturbance, and press a trigger. A powerful laser beam traverse through the air, piercing the cores of all Intruders in a row, quickly finishing them without making any sound. i switch position to avoid being exposed.

After one hour of strategic positioning and shooting, their numbers seem to dwindle, but they just spawn like mushrooms in the forest after a heavy rain. And to think that they do not even mind, something is not correct.

I decide to stop making possible accicental alerts, and just move more closely towards the destination. Of course, if push comes to shove, I have a photon magnum pistol and a photon blade under my coat.

The area is large when observed from the train carriage. But, to actually be immersed in the big factories scattering, it feels no different from ants misunderstanding a bush as a whole forest. And literally, the strategic movement path adds up double to triple the distance I am supposed to walk if I can directly go there.

- Huff, huff, not good...

My motors and connections are working at double the normal rate to continuously cool me against the intolerable heat despite my reflective shells have actively reduced the heat absorption rate by more than half. Under an environment completely blocked off from sunlight, my battery is slowly draining, and currently I have eighty percent left. I can sustain for another three hours and a half, before I need to retreat.

After sneaking through like troops and troops of fully armed Intruders, I get to the foot of the anomalous factory. Blending with other factories under any notice, yet the factory looks like it has been in operation for up to a year or two. That is definitely a strategic move.

If there are many troops stationed inside the underground facility, this factory must be able to hold them. This directly means the factory is equivalent to a yellow-level facility to be allowed to do so. We are definitely facing an unprecedented threat level. It struck my artificial nerves, but there is no way back.

The factory, as expected of a yellow-level facility, has many entrances. I deliberately sneak around, before I finally located a door with seemingly low guard level, surrounded by some blind spots. I mark the spot on my virtual map, then proceed to the next step.

As I continue sneaking outside the factory, I finally find several conveyor belts protruding out of the factory, which then are joint into one big conveyor belt tube that has an odd size compared to other genuine conveyor belt tubes that line up next to them, but is not observable from afar. I mark the tube entrance with another mark on the virtual map, which then shows me its exact coordinates. Right after that, I receive a call via synced vision from Yuusha.

- Mirai, have you detected which conveyor belt links with the factory?

- Yes. The entrance of the belts is in the elevation of negative fifty metres from the sea level, near the left end of the underground facility. Taking the central mine as the point of bearing, geographic North as zero bearing, the conveyor belt entrance is at bearing 240 to 250. Please use the EM headlight to scan.

- Roger that.

The call ends. The exterior investigation is done, and a detailed map of the outskirts of the factory has been recorded and saved via my camera vision. I walk inside the factory using that secret entrance I found out previously, with my photon sniper rifle firmly held, fully locked and loaded.

Just the view inside immediately gives off the vibe that this factory is not built by humans. The interior is clean, much cleaner than one would expect for a facility built among the dusty, toxic and hot atmosphere. The mechanism that the aluminium ores are processed does not look familiar at all, but as far as what I see, they produce aluminium alloys very efficiently, and in much greater quantities. The products are transferred immediately onto a device that resembles a teleportation gate, which I guess that the processed alloys would be transported to another facility to build weapons. There is another gate that links to a conveyor tube, and I assume this is so that the factory would not be suspected.

And with the decreased temperature inside, I switch my operation mode to normal to preserve my batteries, which has fallen to only sixty-five percent left. Stopping wandering around mindlessly like a child in an excursion, I turn on my gamma vision to detect any hidden doors.

Not long after that, the receptor sends me a signal regarding a lid covering a hidden region that lies beneath the already underground factory. I approach the lid and lift it up.

The moment is exactly like finding a lifetime's monetary worth diamond and other valuable stones. Underneath the lid, there lies a matrix of rooms neatly arranged in rows and columns.

This is the Intruders' dormitory.

And as if Yuusha's and my success are intertwined...

- Mirai, two mining Intruders located, overall rating of fourty. Please send further instruction. - There is a vioce message relay from Yuusha. A whisper.

- Noted. Please standby. - I happily replied.